2023 Guide to Safety Technology

2023 Guide to
Safety Technology

WHILE THERE ARE MANY NEW TECHNOLOGIES THAT CAN MAKE THE WORKPLACE SAFER,
EHS PROFESSIONALS WILL NEED TO MAKE A SOLID BUSINESS CASE FOR THEM.

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A Zero-Based Approach to Safety
I
n the current working environment, safety is no longer
considered to be a golden goal to shoot for, even if it
cannot be achieved all the time. Instead, public safety
advocates have recruited regulators and policymakers
to the new requirement that the goal should be an every-
day fact. An absolute safety standard is rapidly becoming
the norm, and if not already here yet, it is headed toward
all employers like a speeding freight train.
This philosophy originated in Sweden in the 1990s and at
first was focused almost exclusively on highway safety. For
instance, the Road to Zero Coalition was organized in the
United States by the National Safety Council (NSC) with the
express aim of eliminating motor vehicle fatalities and se-
rious injuries, to eventually being accomplished through a
mixture of high safety enforcement and improved roadway
designs. (In Canada it is called Vision Zero.)
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2023 Guide to Safety Technology
The Road to Zero goal is the elimination of all traffic
fatalities by 2050. The aim is to zero out fatalities by
controlling traffic speeds and adopting various traffic
calming design strategies for road and highway design.
The zero-based concept has since expanded to other
activities and is being applied to safety improvements
that go beyond eliminating fatalities and the most serious
injuries. Earlier this year, following the fiery derailment of
a Norfolk Southern train carrying hazardous materials in
Ohio, Jennifer Homendy, chairman of the National Trans-
portation Safety Board (NTSB), unequivocally embraced
the zero-accident goal when it comes to rail safety.
“I can tell you this much: This was 100% preventable,” she
declared. “We call things accidents. There is no accident.
Every single event that we investigate is preventable.”
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Expect Zero-Based Approach to Widen
Much of other corporate management in the U.S. that
has not officially signed-on to the zero-based safety
approach can be counted on to do so eventually. One
could argue that the smarter ones will adopt more ag-
gressive safety agendas, rather than wait for federal and
state agencies to come down hard on them, and face a
raft of expensive lawsuits.
From now on, you can expect that constant improvement
will not merely function as an ideal but will be assumed
to be just another tool for getting to the point where any
accidents and injuries are assumed to be unacceptable. It
may not be here now, but do you want to bet against this
happening sooner rather than later? This is something
upper management needs to realize as well.
The ongoing progress of technology in every profession
and line of work creates both challenges and opportunities
for achieving the optimum level of workplace safety that’s
rapidly becoming the standard. The pressure is growing
on corporate leadership, middle managers and front-line
employees to up their game when it comes to creating and
maintaining worksite and public safety initiatives.
Figure 1. Which of the following technologies are you using, or plan to use, as part of your EHS responsibilities?
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2023 Guide to Safety Technology
For safety professionals who are responsible for making
purchasing decisions regarding safety equipment and
technology, the need to embrace solutions to make a real
difference has never been greater. Today’s investment
in safety equipment must lead to measurable improve-
ments or be supported by evidence that it really can work
to maintain a safe workplace environment.
When it comes to making acquisition decisions regard-
ing the continuous flow of technology innovation, you
need to make sure you are on the “leading edge, not the
bleeding edge” (to use an old adage). The need to choose
cost-effective solutions that give top management the
best choices means those investments must lead to
measurable improvements in safety in order to support
reaching the ultimate goal.
As a result, safety professionals must become thoroughly
versed in the products and services they are recommend-
ing to management. In other words, they need to be
knowledgeable enough about them to be equally expert
at selling these products to C-suite executives as they are
at evaluating and buying them.
 2023 Guide to Safety Technology

Safety professionals must become thoroughly

versed in the products and services they are
recommending to management.

The data gathered by EHS

Today’s recent survey regarding
the safety technology purchasing
decisions made by our readers
shows that they are well aware of
many of these challenges and are
making their choices accordingly.

We collected this information

from a survey conducted late
last year of 485 employees
responsible for safety manage-
ment in their organizations. The
respondents’ job titles ranged
from CEO to front-line supervi-
sors and floor managers. Their
operations are involved in eco-
nomic sectors covering a wide

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variety of different kinds of in-
dustries, as well as some public
sector agencies and nonprofits,
and from small companies to
some of the largest employers
in the United States.

Figure 2. Do you use or are you planning to use software to track, manage, analyze and report data about your facilty’s safety performance?

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Supporting Safety
Priorities with Technology
Many organizations have committed to investing in all
kinds of safety technologies, ranging from safety glasses
to sophisticated computer systems. But the responses
to the survey also show that too many senior managers
have been unwilling to invest in what their safety profes-
sionals believe is badly needed.
Technology solutions already being purchased and which
are targets for expanded use in the immediate future
address an amazingly broad range of priorities. At the top
of the list—although not necessarily related to preventing
accidents and injuries—is cybersecurity, with 67% cur-
rently investing in solutions to address the problem, and
another 4% saying they plan to adopt it within the next
two years (Figure 1).
Technology solutions already being purchased
and which are targets for expanded use address
an amazingly broad range of priorities.
Figure 3. How has your company’s spending on safety technology changed since the pandemic began?
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2023 Guide to Safety Technology
Another 65% report that they have acquired high-tech
safety management systems, while 16% are looking to
invest in this area within the next two years. In addition,
64% are currently invested in e-learning and micro-learn-
ing, with 4% planning to add these types of training
solutions within two years, and another 64% are current-
ly using mobile aps, with another 16% planning to do so
within two years.
The Internet of Things (IoT) has seen investment by 37%
of respondents, with another 19% saying they plan to do
so within two years. Also, 28% are making use of predic-
tive analytics, 27% are involved in localization technol-
ogy, and 20% are planning to invest in both. In addition,
24% are currently spending on wearables, with 18%
planning to buy them within two years. Already invested
in smart personal protective equipment (PPE) are 19%,
with another 22% expecting to do so within two years.
 2023 Guide to Safety Technology

These responses indicate that safety professionals are
embracing technology to improve the functions and
broaden the capabilities of floor-level equipment in daily
use, like PPEs and wearables, as well as to expand their
ability to supervise safety processes and results at a
higher level of management by using augmented safety
management systems and predictive analytics. This
shows a healthy awareness of the importance of all kinds
of technology solutions, large and small, to create and
maintain a safe workplace.
“Analyze data to extract information that trends leading
safety indicators throughout all operations of the business
to reduce accidents/incidents prior to them occurring.”
“We emphasize near miss and stop work authority in the
field and require it to be reported/create a notification to
the Safety Team, being proactive instead of reactive.”

A sample of respondents’ com-

ments bring this home:

“Software evaluates each case

looking for similarities that occur
more than once and implement
procedures to remove the cause of
the accident.”

“We use the data from incident

reports to look for trends and then

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focus on those areas for improve-
ment through better training, PPE,
or increased maintenance sched-
ules to analyze and understand
how to avoid the accident.“

Figure 4. What are the biggest barriers to adoption of safety technology at your company? ( Select all that apply)

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Safety Professionals Bring
the Future Into the Present
Safety professionals are proving that they can keep their
eyes on developments on the horizon as well as focus on
current practices and behavior where they work now. For
example, while 18% said that they have already purchased
and deployed drones in their operations, another 9% re-
vealed that they plan to do so within the next two years.
About 7% have embraced virtual reality/augmented reality,
while about 12% plan to do so within two years. Other
purchasing priorities blend safety concerns with other man-
agement priorities, such as supporting environmental and
productivity goals, including the 5% who have acquired au-
tonomous vehicles and the 4% who plan to, along with the
20% who have bought robots and 6% who plan to. While
only 3% say they have invested in exoskeleton technology,
more than 5% said they will do so within two years.
Analyzing mistakes, failures and accidents is not
the only use that computers can be put to.
Figure 5. What is your company’s budget for technology in the EHS department?
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2023 Guide to Safety Technology
Yoked to powerful computer systems, the data derived
from these devices aids in making choices of the future
capabilities of all sorts of safety equipment, management
strategies and future decisions about other equipment
purchasing decisions. Predictive systems are better to
have than a crystal ball, and when used properly there is
little speculation involved.
As we have seen, analyzing mistakes, failures and acci-
dents is not the only use that computers can be put to.
One respondent stressed that his company is deploying
software and analytics to make sure that past successes
can be duplicated and perfected. Getting more specific,
52% of those surveyed said they currently use or are
planning to use software to track, manage, analyze and
report data about their facility’s safety performance
(Figure 2). On the other hand, 20% said they won’t be
doing that and 29% said they don’t know whether they
will or won’t.
 2023 Guide to Safety Technology

Budgetary restrictions are the biggest barriers to

adoption of safety technology.
Other individual responses include leveraging analytics
from the software to predict issues and areas to improve,
look for leading indicators to get ahead of problems, use
of forward-leaning metrics to accumulate and customize
metadata, target resources and identify unknown issues,
track and identify weaknesses in training, perform root
cause analysis and predictive behavior analysis, and last
but definitely not least, to build a case to take to upper
management for getting more resources.
biggest barriers to adoption of safety technology at
their organizations (Figure 4).
In fact, 55% of respondents said they have no dedicated
tech budget for EHS, a rather startling statistic (Figure
5). Another 32% said their safety tech budget was less
than $500,000, and 7% said their budget was in the
$500,000-$999,999 range. Only 6% had safety tech
budgets of over $1 million per year.

When it comes to a literal buy-in by senior manage-

ment to support safety technology, the COVID-19 pan-
demic appears to have had a limited positive effect
(Figure 3). Survey respondents reported that 15% saw an
increase in spending of more than 5%, with 13% reporting
that their budget boost was in the 3-5% range and 20%
saying they saw a 1-5% bump.

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However, an unfortunate 48% of respondents said
they saw no change in their budgets at all, and about
5% experienced budget reductions of between
1-5%. As a result, it is hardly surprising that 51% of
the respondents said budgetary restrictions are the

Figure 6. In what areas are your using, or planning to use, technology to improve safety in your workplace?
(Select all that apply.)

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 2023 Guide to Safety Technology

Another 36% cited lack of understanding of the technol- It looks like technology vendors need to do more work
ogy’s capabilities as the biggest barrier, and 33% said to educate their customers and prospects, and safety
they were not staffed to implement and use the technol- management professionals have a lot of work to do to
ogy. About 30% cited the lack of ROI or business case to educate their upper management.
be made, while others (26%) blamed the lack of senior
management support. (The Occupation-
al Safety and Health Administration has
some ideas on how to overcome these
barriers that may prove to be helpful.)
About the Survey
Between November 14 and November 29, 2022, EHS Today
Other respondents (28%) cited worker
received 485 survey responses in a wide range of industries, including
resistance to technology adoption.
29% from light and heavy manufacturing, 15% from construction, 8%
from gov-ernment, and other sectors such as chemicals, oil & gas,
The most popular use for safety tech-
retail, utilities, and warehousing/distribution.
nology is for training, as 79% of respon-
dents said they are using or plan to use
Nearly two-thirds (64%) of respondents identified themselves as
tech for that purpose (Figure 6). The
safety professionals, with 92% saying they have responsibility for
next most frequent responses are for
safety in their organizations, 67% having responsibility for
accident prevention (75%), personal
occupational health, and 64% responsible for risk management
protection equipment (55%), regulatory
(multiple answers were allowed).
compliance (53%), and risk manage-
ment (51%).

When respondents were asked what level of value they

are now seeing or expect to see from their safety tech-
nology investment, 39% of them said this was hard to
quantify or it was too soon to say (Figure 7). Only 17%
said they expect to achieve significant value, while 33%
expect the gains to be modest and another 11% predict-
ed they would be marginal.

Figure 7. What Level of value are you now seeing or do you expect to see from your safety technology investments?

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